The Île aux Oiseaux — Bird Island — sits in the middle of the Arcachon bay, an oyster-farming community with a handful of permanent inhabitants and the famous cabanes tchanquées, wooden huts on stilts that stand at the island's southern tip and have become the most photographed image of the bay. Boat trips from the Arcachon jetties visit the island and the surrounding oyster beds; you can eat freshly-opened oysters on board most of these trips.
The island is accessible only by boat, which is part of its appeal. The trip across the bay gives a good sense of the scale of the lagoon and its wildlife — grey herons, egrets, and various waders are common year-round, and oystercatchers pick around the shellfish beds. The boats depart from the Jetée Thiers on the Arcachon waterfront; the crossing takes about twenty minutes.